Welcome to blogSci, the science news blog for everyone! This page lays out some basics, policies, and background information about blogSci. It is meant to be a 'code of conduct' for me, and also to explain clearly to my readers what the site is about and what they should expect from it.

About me

I am Pierre Far. I finished a PhD in bacterial genetics at the University of Cambridge, UK in 2005. My PhD was on a new member of the family of genes responsible for (among many other things) the synthesis of some antibiotics; the most famous example of a type of antibiotic made members of this gene family is penicillin.

About blogSci

The idea for blogSci was born while talking to my friends: everyone would ask me to explain to them the latest news in simple terms, why things happen this way or the other, and more. So I decided to start blogSci to write about the latest scientific discoveries, explaining them in terms everyone can understand. Also, the topics I choose to talk about affect people: that means I tend to cover health and medicine issues quite a bit.

Scope and disclaimer

Note that because I am not a medical doctor, and because I cannot be an expert on all fields, the contents of blogSci should be regarded as informational only. Although I try very hard to explain things to the best of my understanding, and I do reference everything, sometimes mistakes will still be made. As such, the contents of blogSci do not constitute medical advice, does not diagnose, treat, or replace legal or medical advice from a licensed professional. This is especially true for health-related topics: always seek professional advice and never rely on any website, blogSci or any other.

Confidentiality

When you contact me or leave a comment on blogSci, you may be sharing personal information, such as your email address or more. So to ease your mind, here is my promise to you:

• I will never sell or share your name or email address with anyone. I hate spam!!!
• I will only use your email address to reply to you. If you contact me, I will reply by email. If you leave a very interesting comment that I want to explore further, I may email you.

Additionally, I will try to reply to you in a timely manner. Sometimes I get busy (for months), so I can be slow. Sometimes you'll have a reply in minutes. It really depends on what real life is doing to me!

Visitor analysis: as a blogger, a great interest of mine is finding out which of my posts are popular and which ones are flops. To help me understand how blogSci's users use the site, I use various tools to help me gather some data. Some of these tools may use cookies.

Funding and advertising

blogSci is mainly a labor of love for me. However, from time to time, adverts may be displayed on the site. These will be clearly marked as 'sponsors' or 'advertisements' or something similar. Apart from this, it's all paid for from my pocket...

Contact details

I would love to hear from you! You can email me using a form on my other website.

Thank you for reading blogSci!